Edited Collection - Ageing Asia: multimedia representations of ageing and the elderly in Asian societies (Call for Papers for Edited Collection)
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Organization: N/A
Event: Call for Papers for Edited Collection
Call for papers for edited collection on the effects of ageing populations and generational disparities in Asian societies as represented in literature, film, and other forms of media
CFP FOR EDITED COLLECTION (2025)
Working Title for Proposed Volume:
Ageing Asia: multimedia representations of ageing and the elderly in Asian societies
Editors:
Dr. Bernard Wilson
Department of English Language and Culture,
Department of International Social Sciences,
Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Dr. Sung-Ae Lee
Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature,
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Statement of Aims
One of the most pressing problems in many parts of modern Asia is increasing age disparities, as numbers in younger generations decrease in comparison to a burgeoning elderly population, many of whom are now living longer than ever before. Recent statistical data – and associated media representation – indicate just how marked these disparities have now become in a number of Asian nations: South Korea, as one such example, now has the second-highest life expectancy in the world, together with the world's lowest fertility rate, and by next year is expected to achieve the status of “super-aged society” with over 20 percent of the population being 65 years or older.[1] In other areas of Asia, similar disparities and their attendant effects are occurring: in Japan, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research statistics indicate that the number of people over 65 who are living alone is expected to rise to almost 11 million by 2050,[2] while in China the Nikkei Asia reports that, according to the government’s own projections, by 2035 an estimated 400 million people in China will be of the age of 60 and over, representing 30% of the population.[3] While such data specifically points to East Asian societies, elsewhere such imbalances are also making their mark. Despite high numbers in regeneration, the United Nations Population Fund reports that India’s “current elderly population of 153 million (aged 60 and above) is expected to reach a staggering 347 million by 2050”[4] while similar projections are being made elsewhere across much of South and Southeast Asia. Indeed, the number of people aged 60 and older in developing Asia and the Pacific is set to nearly double by 2050 to 1.2 billion – or about a quarter of the total population[5] – undoubtedly bringing pressure to bear on pension and welfare programs and health care, among other services but also, perhaps less obviously, providing an opportunity to re-envision social structures and priorities and to utilise this burgeoning older population. The effects of these changing demographics on Asian societies are manifest, impacting not only the ageing population itself but those generations that follow.
Of particular interest are the following interrelated questions and areas of investigation:
Through a rapidly escalating range of new media discourses, what directions has the understanding of ageing in an Asian context taken in the 21st century? How have the multiple platforms of media, from film, literature, and digital streaming services, to gaming, graphic fiction, news websites, print media, and advertising, represented, encouraged, or resisted traditional perceptions and contemporary transitions?
Amidst broader and mutating referential frameworks and contemporary cross-cultural influences, is the traditional concept of filial piety still as relevant in the 21st century, or is its ongoing decline inevitable? Such a decline would further be exacerbated by, for example, rapid increases in the numbers of childless people across Asia and the Asian diaspora.
What may we learn from ageing and death as it is ritually represented through folkloric tradition? How have religious, philosophical, and cultural influences shaped the understanding of ageing and the elderly in Asian contexts, and how is this changing?
What changes are taking place in the structure of families in relation to new definitions of ageing and the treatment of the elderly? How are relationships between children and the elderly represented?
What is the impact of the increasing burden on younger generations, both in terms of practical and emotional care and economic support, and how do these aspects play out in multimedia representations?
Statistical increases in elderly abuse may be witnessed in a number of Asian societies. How are these being shown and unpacked through multimedia?
Are elderly populations also being represented as potential sources of economic productivity and knowledge?
How are the effects of isolated ageing and increases in “lonely deaths” depicted? What are the attendant ethical and moral implications?
Similarly, in diasporic communities, the elderly may be brought from their home country for purposes of childcare, emotional support, or perceive upward social mobility, and are often isolated in linguistic and cultural terms. How is this represented in multimedia?
In similar terms, how is the increasing problem of rural abandonment discussed?
How have feminist approaches impacted the treatment of the aged?
Have changing definitions of gender had any impact on ageing and those aged who exist outside of traditional heteronormative expectations?
How are the ongoing issues surrounding dementia, senility, and Alzheimer’s disease discussed and represented?
What effect is the growing inadequacy of state welfare support having on successive generations and how is this being exposed and discussed in multimedia?
How has a reliance on grandparents for childcare affected family structures and dynamics?
Has an increasing ethnic diversity in Asian societies and in Asian families changed the understanding of ageing and the treatment of the elderly?
How have globalisation and consumerism affected or undercut traditional concepts of ageing in Asia?
The broad spectrum of what constitutes ageing and aged, and what this signifies in different cultures and settings, ensures that the term is constantly mutating – the concept of age itself representing as it does a range of conceptual interpretations. And though the sense of this is at first glance perhaps overwhelmingly negative, there are also positives to be drawn in defining new approaches to elderly living, new attitudes to the potentialities of ageing actively, and new possibilities in the workforce. In our previous collections of essays – Asian Children's Literature and Film in a Global Age: Local, National and Transnational Trajectories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, co-edited with Sharmani Patricia Gabriel), and The Asian Family in Literature and Film Volumes I and II (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, co-edited with Sharifah Aishah Osman) – the representation of the Asian child and the Asian family on screen and on the written page were the central foci, but this new collection of essays will investigate an area which has had relatively limited scholarship and will consider Asian ageing in its varied conceptions and conditions. It will most particularly focus on analyses of ageing in Asia as they are represented in literature, film and other visual media in an Asian context and emerging from Asian regions, but will also assess Western influences on the attitudes to ageing and the contestations of generational power dynamics and the moral codes that underpin such representations. It will seek to look at traditions and transformations in the evolving structure and perception of ageing and the aged and will provide a forum through which a range of scholars – both from within and beyond Asia – can bring greater attention to these representations in written and visual texts. It hopes to reflect upon the changing social and cultural mores represented in those texts, and discuss the issues that concern the treatment of ageing and aged people and generational differences both in the past and present, and their continued transitions and projections for the future.
Theoretically, and contextually, this collection of essays will offer a wide scope, providing incentive for representation and analysis from scholars across the globe and across disciplines. The editors are most specifically interested in the articulation of the cultural and social representations of ageing in Asian society(ies) in literature and film, but also in related historical, anthropological, psychological and gendered perspectives – among others – to which such representations may be linked.
Submissions Timeline and Contact Information
We will be approaching a leading academic publisher with this collection.
All papers should be submitted in English and should be between approximately 7,000 to 10,000 words, not including references.
Papers should comprise work that has not been previously published.
Please send an abstract of 200-300 words and an 80-100 word bio to bfwilsonku@gmail.com or sung-ae.lee@mq.edu.au by 15 November 2024.
Accepted contributors will need to submit their chapter drafts to the editor by 30 June 2025.
Please contact the editors at the following email addresses if you have any questions:
bfwilsonku@gmail.com
sung-ae.lee@mq.edu.au
[1] Statista: L.Yoon, https://www.statista.com/topics/12258/aging-population-in-south-korea/#topicOverview
[2] The Guardian, 1 July 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/01/life-at-the-heart-of-japans-solitary-deaths-epidemic-i-would-be-lying-if-i-said-i-wasnt-worried?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1njTTpqbdOdKrFneVbHxz3tNPJTM0SqAJNniLGTBsmsYi7QGCGd53s7ds_aem_b_XpY4vfltkkgjXLv2AuQA#Echobox=1719814022
[3] Nikkei Asia, March 22, 2023.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/China-s-aging-population-threatens-a-Japan-style-lost-decade>)
[4] United Nations Population Fund
https://india.unfpa.org/en/news/indias-ageing-population-why-it-matters-more-ever#:~:text=While%20India%20has%20the%20 highest,staggering%20347%20million%20by%202050
[5] Asian Development Bank https://www.adb.org/news/developing-asia-and-pacific-unprepared-challenges-aging-population#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20people%20aged,well%20as%20health%20care%20services.
Bernard Wilson